


Hypothetical Disasters

by theoatking



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Anorexia, Based on what im going through rn lol, Eating Disorders, False Memories, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, i promise I’ll get back to it soon, the violence isn’t actually real it’s just brain stuff, which is why i haven’t updated Needle in ages
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28631898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoatking/pseuds/theoatking
Summary: Sonic lives in his own head, the routines and restrictions don’t just keep him safe, they keep everyone safe- supposedly. In reality, all they do is keep him stuck and alone, too scared to leave the house, too anxious to see his loved ones in fear that he’ll lose all control, and keep him so distant he’s consumed by illogical spirals.(Based on actual experiences with OCD and EDs)
Relationships: Shadow the Hedgehog/Sonic the Hedgehog
Comments: 11
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

He’s lying right beside me, I should be holding him closly and tightly like I love him. Because I do love him, don’t I? 

Yes. Definitely. My heart flutters when he smiles despite his infamous grouchyness. It’s part of the reason I love him. It took so long to crack the shell, for the vulnerability to leak out, but once it showed itself, once it trusted me, there was no going back. I love him. I absolutely love him.

So why is it so hard to be around him? Why can’t I stand the fur I should find so soft and comforting in these cold nights? Why do the gentle kisses make my constantly crawling skin skuttle? Why do I not feel safe anymore?

I check my muzzle, it’s not against the pillow, good. It’s against the oversized hoodie I have to wear to feel a little secure in my own bed. I check my lower half- it’s safely within the boundries of the freshly cleaned throwblanket that stops my naked fresh touching the sheets. The sheets we’re supposed to share and spoon benieth. I’m cold.

I sit up, I don’t like lying down close to these sheets. Do I need anothet blanket to sleep on, to keep distance between us? The sheets, I mean. Not me and Shadow. Though the more I obsessed and check and do these stupid irrational things the greater the distance becomes.

I hold my head. I want to stop being scared all the time. I’m tired. I’m cold. I’m sad. It’s all my fault.

“Everything okay?”

His sleepy voice is muffled in the dark. The dark where he sleeps comfortably, cosily, unafraid of the bedsheets. His recklessness disgusts me.

I wipe my eyes, I didn’t even notice I was crying.

“Hey!” He gets closer, but doesn’t touch me. He know it’s hard for me to touch him. How pathetic is that? When I love him. Because I do love him. I remember when he caught me as I fell from the top of a coaster at White City and my heart skipped a beat and I couldn’t stop smiling. I absolutely love him.

“What’s wrong?” His voice is so tender and I don’t deserve it. He deserves better. Deserves someone who can love him without issue. Without mental blocks. Without these crazy irrational thoughts constantly third wheeling. Jeez, that’s it, isn’t it? I love my anxiety more that him. I accommodate my fears more than my love for him. I’m a terrible person. A terrible boyfriend.

He thinks I’m batshit. Thinks I don’t love him.

“I love you, you know that, right?” I whisper, unsure of it.

“Of course I do!” he seems almost exasperated by the question. I fucked up again, by asking.

“I want this to stop, I just want this to stop!” I sob. I want to be held as much as he wants to hold me. That’s the worst part. I can do these crazy compulsions all day everyday and there’s no way I can be held when it gets to much, because that’s a compulsion too.

“It won’t be like this forever. I know you can get through this, Sonic.”

Is that what this is? A blip? A small chip in my sanity that was, until a few months ago, completely fucking fine? Or is this just the last loop in the ever unraveling yarn that wraps my brain up safely, ready to be delivered in a box labeled FRAGILE. I don’t want to be fragile, but I don’t seem to have a say in the matter anymore.

“I don’t think I can.”

“You’ve conquered death before! You’ve done literally the impossible!”

“That’s not the same! That was final! No one gave me the choice! That was all...”

It’s hard to explain. Dying sucked, I can’t deny that. It scared me. It made me never want anyone to experience that again. Made me want to make everyone immortal.

And that was all on the outside. My heart stopped but my brain kept going. And right now the opposite is happening. My brain has come to a sharp holt whilst my heart beats ever faster to make up for it.

“This is an illness like any other, Sonic, it just effects a different part of your body. It can still recover.”

He’s not wrong that this is an illness. Before this I always thought mental illness was just all being sad for a bit- and I’ve been sad before, so it seemed terrible but understandable. But then this happened, and it actually started to hurt. My brain hurt, the constant thinking and overthinking and underthinking and the panic and the headaches. It’s all so real. My brain is not healthy and therefore none of me is. It effects everything.

But how do I get better from this? There’s no magic pill that will completely rewire my neurones. This isn’t an illness, maybe I was wrong, it’s just a part of me. It’s a part of my personality. Something I can’t change. Can I change?

* * *

He’s getting ready for a mission. We sat at the table for 40 minutes at breakfast, he tried to get me to eat, but I let him down. I’m paranoid about food. I worry about what it will do to me. He made it, with his hands, I’m not sure where they’ve been. How hard did he wash them after pissing? Did any of his fur molt whilst he fried the eggs? How much oil did he put in? It doesn’t take much oil to add hundreds of calories. I saw the oil congealing on the plate, being soaked up by the toast already drenched in butter. It was too much. 

He told me eating would help my brain be more rational, and he was right, but I’m so fucking far from rational. Toast and eggs won’t cure me. So what’s the point?

He gave up after a while, I drank coffee- the only thing I know is safe. Now he’s heading out. He doesn’t know what time he’ll be back, and I can tell he’s remorseful that he doesn’t because he knows I’m prone to spiral in the face of the unknown.

“I’ll try to be back before 10, okay?” He smiles at me regretfully.

I smile back, but I’m anxious to be alone, whilst also feeling relief that I will be. I don’t like to be alone but I’m close to co-dependancy now and that’s a burden on everyone, and on the bright side, at least I can’t stress about killing him when he’s far away from me.

“I love you,” he says, as he closes the door.

I shrug, “yeah.”

And now I’m alone, in a tiny house so full of furniture it feels huge and overstimulating and small and boring all at once. I could watch tv. I could journal. 

Remember when I used to run? When I could go outside and feel the wind on my face and dance in the sweet spring smells that filled the air with romance and beauty? Remember when I flew through the sky on my brother’s plane, before my brain got poisoned with this idea that I was going to kill him too?

I could call him. Just to talk.

* * *

“Hey bro! How are you doing?” Tails’ voice is cheery and excited. I love the sound of it, I love him so much, which is why I can never see him- incase my thoughts are true.

“I’m okay. Surviving,” not a lie, my survival just seems to look exactly like death right now.

“That’s all good, I miss you so much man!” shut up. Don’t make me feel worse.

He is too understanding. He saw how anxious I was getting, how withdrawn and weird I acted. He was the first to notice something was wrong all those months ago. He came to the Doctor with me- the appointment where they told me I have OCD. I said it was stupid because I didn’t wash my hands 24/7 and I didn’t really care about order. They said it’s more than that, that it’s about intrusive thoughts and the things people do to sooth them- the compulsions. And they were right, at least I think. Maybe I do have OCD. And if I don’t, then I just have to admit to myself that I’m a fucking terrible person.

Tails was there for me as always, helping me process that I really am as nuts as I am. He helped me remember to take the zoloft. But then the zoloft made me sick and my brain got paranoid he was trying to hurt me. That the zoloft was poison. So I stopped, and then I felt bad because he was only trying to help, because the idea that he’d poison me was irrational and I knew it. 

  
Then I started thinking about how to take revenge on him, even though I didn’t want to. Even though I love him more than anyone.  


Imagine if I cooked for him and laced his meal with 1000mg of zoloft. He’d die. And I could watch the betrayal and fear in his eyes as he passed away painfully before me. 

Those thoughts were the worst. They scared me. Why would I do that? Why would I think that? Why would I try to kill the person I love more than anyone in the entire world?

So that’s why I can’t see him.

I pace around the house as he tells me about all the fun things he’s doing, how he knows I’d enjoy them. He’s wrong. I wouldn’t, not anymore. Maybe past me, me from 7 months ago would’ve enjoyed them- now I’d just think about killing him with whatever machine he had invented in the more grousome way imaginable.

I clentch my eyes tight at the thought of my brother lying bloody and dying on the floor of his own workshop. The crash of the machine falling from my hand and shattering around him. Me realising this is my fault and I took the most important person from my own life because I couldn’t help myself.

Shut up. Shut up.

“Sonic-?” His voice pulls me from the thought.

“I’m here” I mutter. I’m staring at the butter knife Shadow left out. I should clean the kitchen. I should gouge out my own eyes. I should clean the kitchen. I should stab myself over and over in the heart with the butter knife, it would really hurt. I should gouge out my own eyes. 

Fucking....fucking stop it.

I drop the phone so I can hold my head in my hands, the hot tears streaming down my muzzle that I can’t be bothered to wipe away. 

I hate this. 

* * *

I do the compulsions, the ones that keep me so trapped. I do them for hours knowing I shouldn’t be doing them. Knowing this won’t help me get better. Knowing it’s all irrational.

I stare at the sheets in the washing machine, it goes round and round in a nauseating way like my stomach on zoloft. I should start taking it again. It stopped me crying. I should take all the pills and die. Shadow would be really upset if it did that, so I’m not going to.

I should jam the toothbrush into my eye.

No I wont do that either.

I cut clip my eyelids off with nailscissors.

I rub my face again, to check my eyes are still there, I can feel them, see out of them. They’re still there. I need to get out of the bathroom.

The late afternoon sun is shining through the window and making mine and Shadow’s empty room brighter. That combined with the stripped bed looms too lonely to bare. I should be out there basking in the limited wintery daylight, but I’m not. Because I can’t get out of my own mind, never mind the house.

Fuck. Even when he’s here I’m alone. I have hundreds of friends- too many friends. Too many to keep up with when I don’t see them, or can’t see them. Do they think I hate them?

I’m so lonely. No one understands me. I’m gonna be like this forever. I’m gonna be in this house forever.

The floor feels dirty on my socks. Bits of skin flakes and fur and bugs maybe. I should clean it again.

I should put my shoes on even though it’ll make the floor even dirtier.

I clean the floor. The whole house sparkles in hours and I’m still not satisfied. I still don’t feel safe here. I don’t feel safe anywhere. I’m even a threat in my own head.

I want to sit down but one summer I saw fly shit dotted on the armchair so I can’t sit there anymore. I want to eat, but I’m scared that with my starved body, if I start eating I wont stop and then I’ll die and fuck fuck fuck I should kill myself I should jump from the window no but then I could just paralyse myself forever and not die I should gouge my eyes out I should stop myself with a butter knife I should kill Shadow in his sleep and bury the body in the sandbox outside Cream’s house and then run to Tails and kill him too and then shoot myself when my homicide is complete fuck fuck.

I pull out my mobile with shaky hands and dial the number of the very person I'm fantasising about killing. He doesn’t know I do that. 

The phone rings 8 times before the automated voice message responds telling me he’s not available and to leave the message after the tone. Fuck. Is he okay?

Did he get shot? He was going on a mission. What kind of mission? One with guns? Is he dead. Did I kill him? Did I actually do it??


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive trigger warning for this chapter, it contains a suicide attempt via oding so please don’t read if that kind of content triggers you, i hope you’re okay and surviving too and taking care of yourself best you can.   
> Also thank you for the comments showing legitimate concern, I promise I’m doing okay generally right now. I’ve been through the worst of it hopefully, and I’m on the path to recovery right now. Writing this was just helpful to project a bit! Don’t worry!

Did all the fantasies finally come true and I killed him last night and forgot? Did I lose control and act on my thoughts? The butter knife. Fuck, I’ve been thinking about the butter knife all day I must have stabbed him to death at breakfast because I remember I was mad about the eggs I got annoyed I lost control and I stabbed Shadow over and over in the heart then gouged out his eyes and 

“That didn’t happen that didn’t happen shut up!” I’m hyperventilating and crying and it’s so hard to breathe, “I didn’t kill Shadow he’s just at work!”

I should kill myself for what I think I did. Maybe I didn’t kill him but clearly I’m going to. Clearly that’s something my mind is planning on. One day I will finally snap and lose control and kill my boyfriend I have to get rid of the source. I have to purge the evil away from this house and that evil is me. I have to delete myself in order for my friends to be safe and healthy.

“Hello? Sonic, are you okay?” His static voice calls down the phone. I was so lost in my spiral I didn’t realise I’d pressed accept. He called me back, took the time and effort to call me back and I can’t stop crying to tell him what’s wrong.

“Sonic? What’s happening?”

“Shadow-I” it comes out broken and throaty. Snot streams from my nose in a sticky gross mess. I’m disgusting. “I don’t feel safe-“ 

“What does that mean, Sonic?” He sounds concerned. Annoyed at my vagueness.

“I feel like I’m going to- to” can I tell him? Can I tell him what my plan was? 

“What do you think you’re going to do? Do I need to call someone? Did you- fuck, Sonic did you take anything?!” He’s panicking. He knows we’re both just getting on with our fractured lives until I inevitably self-destruct. We’re both just waiting for me to kill myself in some way, intentional or not. I made him panic that that time is now. I called him up at work for no reason and he thinks it’s worse than it is I’m a terrible boyfriend.

“No. No. I don’t feel in control. I don’t feel safe alone. I’m sorry, Shadow. I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be sorry, I’m glad you told me. Can you hold on for an hour? We did all we could today anyway, I’ll be home quick as possible!” His harsh voice is somehow softer, though strained with the effort of the initial panic.

I nod even though he can’t see me.

* * *

He’s home by 5pm. He definitely lied about being done sooner than anticipated, to make me feel better.  


Whilst I waited I paced. I tried to put the tv to distract myself from the thoughts but I could feel my brain melting to the sounds of garbage daytime tv and it was almost worse than the intrusive thoughts.

I never had to deal with this conundrum. This boredom. These isolated spirals before. Not when I was okay. It feels like yesterday and years ago all at once. I just wanna be the old me again. What the fuck happened?

Shadow made me eat something. It was just a granola bar, packaged so I knew no one could contaminate it with their hands and I can see exactly what’s in it and deem it safe. He made coffee too. Anything to get some calories into me because I can’t for the life of me drink it black. This is where I fail as an anorexic and Shadow’s at-home diagnosis of my eating problems falters. 

“What happened, Sonic? What made you so upset?” I stare into the milky brown swamp that keeps my gloved hands warm. He’s trying to make me fat. Not he’s not he just wants me to have some energy. He only made coffee cus he knows the milk would give me some energy. How much milk did he put in? 50 calories worth? The granola bar was 215. That makes 265 calories today. Maybe I can eat dinner if he makes rice noodles but if he makes pasta then no.

“A lot of things. And nothing.”

He sighs, “Well, it’s not nothing. If it was your thoughts, that’s not ‘nothing’. They sound like they’re very distressing.”

I nod. I’m going to cry again.He put more milk in this than normal I can tell the coffee is really light in colour so I guess that’s a no to rice noodles too. I’m so hungry I don’t want to skip dinner I really don’t want to I just want to eat this is torture.

“I-I just...for a moment I didn’t know what was real. I didn’t know....what I did,” he say through sniffles, I wish I could tell him how much I’m stressing about food and how much I want to eat I want a fucking lobotomy so I can eat noodles and pasta and eggs and toast and butter and everything. Send me for electroshock therapy and fire thousands of volts into my brain because all I wanna do is eat and I can’t I just can’t it’s like me and food are opposing magnets. Sometimes I put my hand in the branflakes box and just feel them and think about how they would taste and I’m so close to eating always but I never ever do.

He frowns. Taps his fingers on the table where he sits slouched in the cool-kid leather jacket I used to tease him about.

“I think you need more than me, Sonic. I am here for you, always, I’m not going to leave you, but there’s only so much I can do. I simply don’t have the answers”

I nod, I get that. It’s unfair of me to do this. “It’s wrong of me to lay all this pressure on you. I’m sorry.”

“No, no don’t be sorry! I love you, by agreeing to be with you I agreed to help you through the hard times, just like you would me. Fuck, you have helped me!” He smiles reassuringly in a way I can’t help but retun, but mine fades quicker as I realise what he means.

“Therapy?” It seems obvious but the idea terrifies me. When I was diagnosed they prescribed me ‘exposure therapy’ and the name alone made me not go. I don’t want someone to challenge my thoughts because what if they’re real?

“Yeah, or something like that,” he’s avoiding something. He wants to say something but he’s scared to.

“Something like what?”

“Therapy. I mean yes. Therapy.”

“No what did you mean, Shadow, what did you mean?”

“Sonic calm down! You’ll work yourself up again!”

“No you were going to say something what were you going to say! Stop hiding things from me! Everyone’s always hiding things from me!” I stand up from the table suddenly, too fast for my blood sugar to handle, my brain feels like strobe lights as the coffee spills over the wood.Shadow stands up the avoid the hot liquid scortching his fur but otherwise he doesn’t care about the coffee spilling everywhere and dripping to the floor. That’s going to stink later if we don’t clean it soon.

“What the hell does that mean? Who’s hiding what from you?”   
  


He thinks I sound crazy. I DO sound crazy. Fuck I am crazy.

“Fuck!” I storm out into the living room, I’m not even sure what I mean. My own paranoia, my own intrusive thoughts, they’re the ones hiding things from me. I live them so frequently I forget they’re not reality.

I killed Shadow when I got mad. I remember I took the butter knife and jammed it into his heart and then gouged his eyes out and ate them.

“Stop!” I whisper, like a prophet receiving a terrifying vision. Shadow runs over worriedly and stands beside me at a safe distance. I want him to hold me so bad.

“Sonic!”

“I’m sorry for getting mad I didn’t mean to hurt you!”

“Hurt me? You didn’t hurt me!”

That just makes me cry harder because I don’t know what I even did. Maybe my life would just be easier if I was a bad person who acted on every thought I had.

* * *

He’s sleeping soundly again, in our freshly washed, colour-faded sheets. I look at him, envying his ability to just do things and be so unafraid of consequences.

I’m still cold. I’m always cold. This hoodie is the only safe thing and it doesn’t even keep me warm. It used to be so fluffy but I kept washing it over and over everyday, every time it even touched the bed, and now it’s as scratchy and thin as it’s wearer.

I want to cuddle up beside him and feel his warm chest fur against my cheek. I loved that, I loved how he is slightly taller than me and my face would press against is softness no problem. I would love to do that now, too, but fur isn’t all that hygienic. It gets mites and fleas and dirt and everything. I hate that I have it. I want to shave it all off. But then I’d be even colder.

The clock says 4:26am. I’ve slept 2 hours in 2 days. I’ll pass out eventually, when my mind shuts up. And then the alarm will go just as I reach a dream and it’s time to start another day of my own mental torture.

I don’t mind. The dream would be horrifying anyway. 

I hold my knees in close, I look at him more. The slow breaths, the relaxed facial muscles that he tenses constantly throughout the day. His brow is almost upturned in his slumber as his flickering eyes move around his 360 dreamland.

I could plunk out his eyes whilst he’s asleep he’d be so confused and scared.

No I’m not going to do that it’s just an intrusive thought.

I have the butter knife under my pillow I planned to kill him tonight the grease from the butter knife is seeping into the bottom of my pillow I’ll have to wash it again once I’ve done killing him though I don’t think the blood will come out so I’ll have to kill myself 

Stop.

Imagine how sad he’ll be opening the one eye you left in to see you devouring his other eye right in from of him like an out of control feral beast you can’t control your thoughts what makes you think you can control yourself you’re destined to kill your boyfriend fuckhead

I lift the pillow up, no butter knife.

Did I already kill him?

No he’s still there. He’s sleeping. Maybe he’s dead. I killed him. Now I have to kill myse

“STOP IT” I pull at my quills so hard a few of them pop out.

Shadow jumps awake “Wha-?”

Fuck I have to get out. I have to get rid of the source. I have to purge the evil from this house and that evil is me and my crazy thoughts and my crazy brain I'm destined to kill my boyfriend and my brother and bury them in Cream’s sandbox the blood will turn the sand red and Cream will be scarred for life and it’ll be my fault fuck fuck fuck

“Fuck!” I hit my head with my fists to try and stop the stream of thoughts but they will not slow down.

I’m going to grab my own eyes and rip them out of my skull and eat them because I’m hungry and I can’t eat normal food because I’m a fucking serial killer like in the movies I’m fucking insane and crazy I have to eat eyeballs because I don’t want people to see the horrible things I do to them and I don't want to either I want to kill myself before I have the chance to hurt anyone I have to stop my heart beating so I can’t I can’t so I can’t I have to stab it with the butter knife all the grease and the calories will clog up the bleeding arteries and I need to shave off my fur I should drink bleach to clean my organs because there was butter in the granola bar I ate before and it’s still there I haven’t done a shit all day I'm fucking going to fuck fuck fuck

“Sonic keep breathing, okay. Take deep breaths!” Go away you’re not safe around me I’m going to kill you.

I stumble up from the bed. Still hyperventilating. Still crying. I’m dizzy from the tiredness but I have to do it.

“Sonic?” He gets up he tries to follow me but I’m faster than him always have been that’s why I’m so dangerous because no one can stop me I'm the only one that can stop me.

The zoloft maybe it will help maybe it’ll stop my brain I should take it.

I lock the bathroom behind me. Shadow stops outside it. I need alone time. That’s all. That’s all. I just need to cry on my own as I pop every single pill from the silver packet containing the zoloft. This will cure my brain. I never gave it a chance before, I was so caught up in the idea it was Tails poisoning me that I never gave it a chance so now I have to try.

How many is too much? I’m eating them like candy. A whole row of 10 is gone. So that’s 500mg. I could get it to 1000mg because that’s what I was gonna do to Tails I should do it to myself first just to check okay just the check that it wouldn’t kill him.

I keep taking them. Well past 1000mg. I moved on to the third row. This is why I can’t eat because once I start doing this I can’t stop this is evidence. My body won’t stop shaking. I feel sick but I have to do this to make sure it’s okay.

This is irrational. I’m overdosing. This is going to kill me. Am I trying to kill myself? Is that what this is? The thing we’ve both been waiting for, did it finally happen? I didn’t mean it that way. I promise, okay, please believe me. I really didn’t mean for this to kill me I just wanted to stop the thoughts and check...check Tails check Tails check fuck my head hurts it really hurts but I’ll be okay you can’t overdose on SSRIs I read it somewhere because I thought about it before I feel okay actually I’m fine fuck this is weird I want to embrace Shadow and tell him I love him I’m going to propose to him tonight I want to spend my whole life with him my head hurts so bad I can’t think straight I’m going to throw up fuck

fuck

I feel the hard tile floor bruising my side as I collapse in a shivvery mess. I can’t control my limbs. Shadow bangs on the door, he’s screaming my name. It starts to sound distant. I think he burst the door open because I can see him now but I don’t remember that happening. Time feels like thick tar that I’m drowning in.

“Fuck Sonic! Fuck! What did you do? Fuck!” He’s almost crying, he holds my shaking head in his lap and strokes my fur. I’m somehow crying through the fogginess because I’m so scared and everything hurts and I think I’m gonna throw up or did I do that already I really don’t want to die.

He’s on the phone between telling me I’m gonna be okay. I’m so fucking far from okay.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wanted to update this sooner but i dont know if i like how this chapter turned out? Is it too boring/detailed? Idk  
> Also I started treatment so idk how often I’ll update since I’m kinda exhausted but yeah, hope this isn’t too weird

It’s almost peaceful when I wake up, almost. It’s the most I think I’ve slept in months, but I wish it hadn’t been becaue it feels like my brain is boiling in my own skull. I adjust to how alive I am, trying to move something, but it feels like my whole body has been thrown about by some colossal Badnik. I can’t lift my head from the pillow, like my brain absorbed all the boiling water in my skull and now is 3 times heavier, my eyes open despite everything protesting.

I’m in a bed. IN a bed.

I need to check the sheets, fuck.   
  


I glare at them best I can in my swirling vision that threatens to chunk up the contents of my empty stomach. My whole body is immersed in the sea of white blankets.

I used to pretend blankets were the sea as a kid. That I was a mermaid chilling in the cool salt water, basking in the hot tropical sun. That’s how I got to sleep. But then I started to think about all the dangerous deep sea creatures, the things that bite and nibble at your toes, and my calming sea became a whirlpool.

And it’s weird, I don’t even care about the sheets this time. They’re hospital sheets, people take great care in ensuring minimal contamination, I can’t see any marks, and anyway, I’m too tired to do anything about it.

There’s an IV in my hand, delivering medicine and other shit into my viens. I could be allergic to it. It could send the poison directly to my heart. There’s things pumping under my skin, like bugs scuttling from nerve to nerve, taking whatever resources they can find to my brain. I can’t control it. I can’t control what they’re doing to me, what they’re forcing into me. I’m too weak to rip it out, I can only stare. Watch whilst-  
  


“Hey”, Shadow interjects, I look up lousily to where he sits beside the bed in a shitty plastic chair. He’s trying to smile but I can see he’s upset. Upset with me. I fucked up.

“I’m sorry,” I start, but my throat is so dry and everything is burning.

“I’m just glad you’re alive, don’t apologise,” I have to though. He puts a hand on the bedsheet, dips it into the rock pool, the scalding hot sea that threatens to drown me and the the southern sun that beats down only on my face. Blinding me. I shut my eyes because it hurts.

I’m exhausted just by the effort of being conscious, I clench my eyelids and hope the waves of the blankets will lap me up like the little mermaid turning to sea foam, but unfortunately I appear to be on a rickety ship in a storm that’s dangerously close to regurgitating my single granola bar lunch.

“It’s okay, just rest for now,” and that’s all he says whilst my dizzy mind focuses on the beeps of the machinery in the ward and the tapping of 20 year old computer keyboards from the reception, and on the rise and fall of my own chest.  
  


I fall into a completely dreamless sleep for hours. I’m aware of how bored I am whilst asleep but I’m not ready to wake up. I still feel the nausea and fever riping into my brain and stomach like a ravenous beast devouring every morsel of my being until there’s nothing but bones to chew and gnaw at till they snap and break.  


Eventually, when I’ve generated enough energy to open my eyes again I am hit with an even bigger ache as my stomach muscles tense and I shake from an almighty effort I can’t seem to stop.  


“It’s okay, I’m here,” his voice is soft as I look at him through hooded lids. It’s like he’s in work mode, like I’m his mission today. Holding a cardboard bowl under my muzzle whilst an acidic stream of vomit is forced from my guts isn’t really my idea of a thrilling chase, or good triumphing over evil. Or maybe it is- the evil of my OCD, what it made me do.

Am I misplacing the guilt? I am my OCD. This was my fault too.

“S-sorry,” I croak through reches, and Shadow frowns at me sympathetically. I know he’s mad and upset at me but I’m too drained to say anything more than the desperate apologies between bouts of vomiting. I really don’t want to be alone right now, not now. Is that selfish? 

* * *

It’s just days of being tired and slipping into painfully dull sleep. A few docotrs came, and said I was lucky to be alive, that I almost didn’t make it due to my condition. They said they were extremely worried about my weight, that I was severely malnourished. They even felt it was too dangerous to feed me properly so didn’t offer any of the famously gourmet hospital meals that I’d come to know so fondly from the countless batterings and scrapes obtained from battles over the years. So they give me suppliments for now, but I can’t drink them. I manage 1 a day, because that’s what I’m allowed. 1 thing in the evening.   
  


So obviously, obviously, they bring a psychologist in to dissect my brain. She asks me questions, that I return with white lies, but she still says she’s worried I may have an eating disorder, promising me a full evaluation once I’m feeling better. Really? Feeling better? That’s your word choice?

The fever starts to fade, and by the end if the week, I’m almost able to stay awake longer than 3 hours.

Shadow comes and goes but stays as long as he can. He can’t take all this time off work and it’s wrong of me to expect that of him. He mentioned that Tails wanted to come and see me, and I said I’m too anxious for that, I’m sorry. He said it’s okay, Tails will understand, he’s just worried, and maybe it’d be good for me to see someone else, maybe hearing about Tails’ life will take my mind off mine- the one I so wrecklessly tried to toss in the trash.

“I wasn’t trying to die, Shadow,” I say. We’ve been avoiding talking about it, and I spoke to so many professionals at this point I’ve lost track of who I haven’t told.

“What were you trying to do, then?” His face drops as soon as I bring it up, like my stomach now that I have to confront it.

“I just wanted the thoughts to stop, I know it didn’t make sense, my brain wasn’t making sense, I just wanted them to stop!” I cringe at how desperate I sound.

“And you thought killing yourself was a valid option?” He’s tense, I can tell he’s trying to contain his annoyance. He knows it won’t be productive to get mad, but he is, and I can’t fault him for that.

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself!” I don’t know if I’m telling the truth or not. I’m not sure what I was trying to do.

“Sonic, I don’t know if I believe you, I’m sorry.” he just looks sad now, and it’s my fault. I made the love of my life so sad I made him scared that he was going to lose me I put so much pressure on him I’m a terrible boyfriend people like me shouldn’t get into relationships we’re too much hard work we’re toxic people should cut us off I don’t deserve any friends I wish it worked I wish the zoloft had killed me even if that’s not what the plan originally was.

“I’m sorry,” that’s all I can say. That’s all I ever say, I’m like a broken fucking record. 

He sighs and sits down beside me, not before examining my pathetic form and putting his head in his hands. “I know. I want you to get better, Sonic, and I know you want too as well, but I’m worried you aren’t trying,” I can tell he regrets saying that the moment it comes out of his mouth, because he looks back at me then rubs his eyes, but the worst part is he’s not even wrong. I’m not trying. I never have tried. I bailed on the exposure therapy, the meds, I continued to be a slave to my compulsions for months until it burned me from the inside out, and all that’s left is a hollow skeleton with echoes of life.

“I know. I’m gonna try, I promise, Shadow,” he looks at me doubtfully, I have given him no evidence so far that I’ll follow through with this promise, so I do the impossible.

I offer my hand.

I’ve not done that in months and I’m terrified to do it, it’s shaking so violently and even he hesitates as he takes it. My fur crawls as his hands touch mine, even with his gloves. I hate it I hate it I hate it. But I have to do this for him, for me, for Tails, for everyone.

* * *

Tuesday morning, a week and a day since my little zoloft act, and a psychologist named Ava is wheeling- yes- wheeling me to an office. I like Ava, she’s the most punk looking psychologist I’ve ever seen, and says things like ‘coolsies’ and ‘okie dokie’, but I’d like her a lot more if she hadn’t prescribed me bedrest and a wheelchair.

Her and another doctor weigh me, ask me a lot of questions that I don’t have the energy to lie about the answers to (or maybe I even want to get better) and suddenly I’ve been blessed with another diagnosis. I don’t know how I feel about that, I’m just numb.

They  concluded it was anorexia nervosa, like Shadow had always speculated.  


When they told me I just laughed.

Lazy diagnostics. It’s just my OCD being crazy, I don’t know why they have to layer diagnosises on me like the fucking princess and the pea.

I gave up on labels a long time ago because they got so exhausting and confusing. I gave up arguing with myself over whether I was gay or bisexual, and just accepted I was me and I was just doing my thing. Psychologists don’t seem to get that with mental health. I can’t just be Batshit, I have to be an anorexic with OCD and phases of hypomania and depression and maybe I’m bipolar too they said, they want to check that out.   


Can’t I just be sad? Can’t I just be having a bad time? Why does there have to be medical terms for my behaviour? Why does my personality have to be a psychiatry bingo card?  


Two hours later, a meal plan formulated, the knowledge that it is possible to have a bmi of 13, and a plan to get to moved to a psychiatric ward in the bag, Ava wheels me back to the general ward. She really comes through with the relatable quirky nurse talk.

”I know it’s hard, but you can recover from this, Sonic. I know you have it in you!”

”What do you know!” I’m grumpy, okay, let me have this. I just got diagnosed with anorexia and told I can’t leave this fucking hospital until I weigh a certain amount. I’m allowed to be grumpy.

”I know how hard eating disorders can be, they’re evil things.”

She’s wrong. Eating disorders aren’t evil, they’re helpful. I know it’s killing me but I can’t be mad at it. You know how much energy I wasted on this thing instead of doing compulsions? You know how easy it was to just be thinking about how scared I was of getting fat over being scared of murdering my boyfriend? If my eating disorder isn’t just my OCD repackaged, which I still think it is, I much prefer this one. At least it rewards me with looking sick enough to be taken seriously.  


Ava doesn’t say much more. I think she was trying to tell me she also had an eating disorder but I literally do not care and my high opinion of her is fading. She dyed her cat ears pink- PINK! And still, I would rather some boring middle aged dude who tells me to ‘just eat more’ over her new prattle, reminding me I can’t go to the bathroom or shower without someone to watch me, and that I’ll now be fully monitored at meal times, and if I don’t start having at least the supplements, she’d have to shove an NG tube up my nose and force feed me.   
  


Nah man. That shits too wild for me.

* * *

We’re on day 12 since I tried to off myself with zoloft, 5 days since my anorexia diagnosis. Here’s how it goes down:

I wake up from a shitty sleep at 8am and check everything. Under the sheets and pillows for marks or mites or gunk. I dust off dirt. I change my socks. I’m really stressed that I can’t clean my socks or my hoodie everyday, it makes my skin crawl and sometimes I cry and rip out hairs and quills and pick at my skin till it bleeds to clean any mites that could be latching on or laying eggs inside me. My OCD anxiety overtakes my general self consciousness and I shower. 10 minutes. Someone watching me. It’s nasty.

At around 8:30 someone comes in with a tray of 1/2 portioned breakfast (since I am not well enough for ‘regular portions’ yet) I stare at the heavily buttered toast, like seriously it puts Shadow’s to shame, and don’t touch it. Sometimes I do consider it, sometimes I even reach for it, but no, I never eat it. There’s also always a 150ml cup of juice and I would not touch that if you paid me fucking a million dollars.

So they come in after 20 minutes, and say, “You’ll have to have a suppliment instead,” so they take the tray, and come back with 250ml of this nasty milky shit that you could argue is vanilla flavour if vanilla was made with piss. I tried to avoid drinking it at first, like I said. I even poured it down the side of the beside table the first morning the stakes were raised to ‘do it or ng tube it’, but turns out that’s a really obvious thing to do. So Ava gave me another chance, which she isn’t supposed to do, and I drank it, and everyday since then I have drank it. The guilt I feel after is crazy, I can literally feel the weight piling on again. I’ve never purged before but I did consider it at first, but they removed my bin from the room and I can’t piss in private- so guess I just have to sit here and suffer.

Shadow usually visits in the afternoon. His missions have been mostly in the evening this week, and today he brought a present from Tails with him. It was a new extremely fluffy hoodie, and it made me cry because I miss my brother so much. Shadow also brought my blanket but it just made me stressed. Generally he tries to talk about things to take my mind off everything, but usually I’m distracted thinking of some way to murder him. On the plus side, sometimes the guilt I feel from the suppliment drink stays on my mind too much for any intrusive thoughts to make their way in.

At 1pm they deliver half a sandwich and some fruit. I usually eat the fruit unless it’s banana, because then at least I don’t have to have a full supplement because logically I know this is less calories at least. So I get treated to another 150ml of that vanilla shit, sometimes though, it’s strawberry, which is crazy.

I usually cry and hit myself when no ones around. I punch at my stomach that’s already full of things at such an early time of day because I hate it I hate it. I have to be monitored often so I don’t get up and start doing crazy exercises, but I wouldn’t anyway. The overdose took all my energy with it, I just wish I could pace. I don’t think I’ve ever been caught harming myself, so there’s something at least.

At 5pm they come back with yet more food and I groan into the void. This one varies more, sometimes it’s a couple of boiled potatos and some cassarole thing, today it’s a small omelette and half a piece of toast and fruit for dessert. I cry into it. Shadow made eggs for me every morning even though he knew I wouldn’t eat it, he just wanted me to know that he cared, and he wasn’t giving up on me. I should eat the eggs.

I should try. I promised him I’d try.

Ava pretends not to notice as I sob whilst reaching for the fork, I’m shaking so bad. So fucking bad. I can’t do this. There’s so much colestrol in eggs it’s ridiculous. They fried it in oil too. The butter from the toast has also rubbed off on it fuck I can’t do it I can’t  
  


I drop the fork and cry and cry, Ava stops ignoring it and sits beside me, knowing touch is not an opinion but doing her best.

“I’m really happy you tried, you should be proud of yourself!”

“I’m gonna be like this forever. I’m gonna be fucked forever,” I scream, my thoughts are racing and the panic is rising like the sea levels.

“You’re not. Your motivation is there, I can see it, you just need help, and once you get to the psyche ward it’ll be more available to you than ever. You will get through this. It’s trial and error,” she smiles, but I keep crying. I cry through the other 250ml of supplement. It tastes like wallpaper paste and sugar, and my stomach is already so full and I still haven’t had a shit. It’s been 3 days.

I try to distract myself in the evening. I try to listen to music or watch movies but my brain is itching to get up and walk. I wrap myself deep in the new hoodie, hiding my bloated stomach from myself, but crying about it anyway. I want to get out of here so badly, it feels like prison and yes I do know what that feels like. I don’t want to regain weight, I don’t want my brain to be rationalised, I don’t even want to be dead. I just want to be at home with Shadow. I just want to hold him.  


The last food I get is at 7:30pm, it’s usually some fruit and 150ml of milk which usually I would have been okay with even at home, but they’ve given up wasting food on me and deliver 200ml of the supplement instead, which I drink whilst under the supervison of a different nurse I don’t know, because Ava’s shift was up.  


And then, by 9pm I’m back to struggling to sleep. I can’t have my phone to browse and check and re-read articles about OCD symptoms to check I definitely have OCD and I’m not just terrible, so I just have to lie awake with my thoughts until I pass out. My body is constantly uncomfortable, a weird mix of my bones digging into the bed and my stomach that’s so full of stupid fucking supplement drinks. This doesn’t feel like my body anymore, but it hasn’t really for a long time.

I used to be strong. I used to be so fit and healthy, moving was something I massively took for granted. I was arrogant with how skilled I was, I rubbed it in everyone’s faces because they were slower than me, but now I’m just a husk of that guy. My body ate up all my muscles for energy, the fat that kept me warm has been depleted, now it’s working on my organs. Greedy bastard. 

I wish becoming myself again wasn’t so painful.

* * *

“There’s a bed available for you in the psychiatric ward, you’ll likely be admitted tonight,” Ava tells me on Sunday morning, before starting her morning routine of asking me the same thing over and over even though nothing changes and I doubt it will soon, even with this new opportunity.

“I think having more people available to you and a routine will help. It’s not just therapy, there’s group socials and activities.” Is she crazy? Doesn’t she know how dangerous it is for me to be around others? I’m gonna break her neck her neck is so small I could twist it fuck I'm fat as shit remember when my stomach was flat now it’s just bloated constantly how much weight have I gained since starting refeeding? 10lbs? Fuck do you think? In a week? Is that possible. I feel huge I know huge isn’t bad but it is for me okay

“Is it a ward full of anorexics?” I ask, pulling the fur on my arms, Ava chuckles a little but I don’t know what’s so funny.

”No, it’s not an eating disorder ward, it’s a general mental health ward for folks at a certain risk level, but you will be assigned an eating disorder therapist who will help you and monitor your health carefully. There are some other patients with anorexia and bulimia, it’s likely you will have meal and snack times together”. Great, so all the double loonies in one happy little group. 

“I know it’s scary, but fear can be good. Would you rather spend your life scared of your thoughts or take a daring leap of faith into challenging them? That fear is temporary. OCD fear is permanent if untreated,” she’s right, she makes sense, but my brain doesn’t. You can’t argue with someone who is so openly illogical. There’s nothing to reason with.

“What if my thoughts are true and I don’t have OCD?”

“You do have OCD. If your thoughts were a reflection of your genuine intention you wouldn’t be so consumed with self hatred and lothing. Intrusive thoughts are ego-dystonic, that means they are the complete opposite of your genuine beliefs and the reason you find them so distressing.”

I sigh heavily. I’ve heard this all before. I just want to go home.


End file.
